Positivity for Joe Biden over his domestic agenda – but there is work still to be done

The legislative agenda of Joe Biden appears finally to be gaining some momentum – with the president signing into law a $1.2 trillion (£893bn) infrastructure bill and Democrats in the House of Representatives pushing through a $1.75 trillion social care (plus a lot more) bill, which together form a big part of the administration’s economic policy. All in the space of a week.

But the politics around the two initiatives show the complexities that both Democrats and Republicans face in the current climate in Washington. First, the positives for the Democrats. No doubt the movement on these measures will come as a relief to both the White House and the leading Democrat in the house, Nancy Pelosi. Each can claim some success – with the initiatives proving more popular among voters than Biden’s performance overall, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Sixty-three per cent of the public support the infrastructure bill (which was bipartisan) and 58 per cent support the social care package, the Build Back Better Act. That compares to the 41 per cent who approve of the president’s overall job performance. “We’ll be telling our children and grandchildren that we were here this day,” Pelosi said of the passage to the Senate of the social and climate bill, having finally managed to get both progressive and moderate Democrats on the same page.

The issue for Biden’s party is that all of their 50 votes in the Senate will probably be needed to pass the bill – and changes in the Senate would mean another vote in the house after that. This isn’t as simple as it looks – in the house, the final tally was 220 to 213, with Democrat Jared Golden of Maine voting against the bill and no Republicans voting for it. Moderate Democrats in the Senate – Joe Manchin of West Virginia for one – have expressed doubts about part of the legislation.

For Republicans there was praise from conservatives, and from Donald Trump, for the eight-hour speech by house minority leader Kevin McCarthy, which delayed the passage of the Build Back Better Act from Thursday into Friday. He used the speech to attack “one party” rule in Washington, and no doubt will have fired up parts of the party’s base.

A long fight in the Senate may ensue – but the Republicans will have to be careful not to be seen by the public as blocking measures they support, as well as trying to reduce the impact of the good press the Democrats will receive if they do end up getting the legislation through Congress and can crow about the billions of dollars they have released. It is sure to be an interesting time in the run-up to Christmas.